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Friday, March 10, 2017

Excerpt & Giveaway - Her True Match (X-Ops #6) by Paige Tyler

Her True MatchX-Ops, #6

Author: Paige Tyler

ISBN: 9781492625926

Pubdate: March 7, 2017

Genre: Paranormal

FORCED TOGETHER

When feline shifter
Dreya Clark is escorted from the police interrogation by two secret agents, she
thinks she’s dodged a bullet. That sexy detective Braden Hayes caught her
stealing red-handed. When she finds out what she has to do to stay out of jail,
suddenly she’s missing the hot cop with the piercing gaze. She’s being
recruited for her shifter abilities by the Department of Covert Operations.

WILL DANGER RIP THEM APART?

Braden has been
chasing the smart-mouthed cat burglar for years. But when Dreya’s taken away,
he knows their game of cat and mouse has turned deadly-serious. There’s no way
he’ll let her go off alone. Fur flies and temperatures flare as Braden realizes
Dreya is much more than she appears. Thrown together on a dangerous covert
mission, this unlikely pair will have to rely on each other to make it out
alive.

“How do you know I wasn’t testing the
security system?” Dreya asked, her lips curving into a coy smile.

Braden sat across from the beautiful thief in one of the burglary section’s
interrogation rooms, working hard to keep from smiling back at her. Even though
he knew her record backward and forward, he was still having a hell of a
time maintaining a professional detachment. He was good in the interrogation
room, but Dreya was better. She charmed, she flirted, and she controlled
where she wanted the conversation to go. Braden had already been forced to toss
Mick out of the room. His partner had come damn close to asking their
suspect out on a date, even though she was sitting at the table wearing a pair
of handcuffs.

Though Braden had to admit she made the cuffs look good. Even now, she was
sitting at the table with her long, blond hair cascading around her
shoulders, talking animatedly with her hands as if the heavy stainless
steel cuffs were a fashion accessory. He wasn’t even sure when she’d gotten her
hair out of the braid it had been in before, but he had the crazy urge to
run his fingers through it. He resisted—barely. Dreya had been saying since
they’d brought her in that this was all a big misunderstanding and that
she could straighten this out if she could talk privately with the owner of the
art piece they seemed to think she’d stolen. Like that was going to
happen. Something told Braden that putting her in the same room with some rich
playboy would be an incredibly bad idea. All she had to do was bat those
hazel-green eyes at him a few times and tousle her hair with her fingers, and
the guy would agree with anything she said. Hell, the guy would probably
give her the silly blue balloon dog thing sitting on the table between them as
a gift.

“If we’re going to talk about security systems, Dreya, let’s start with how you
managed to climb the wall of that apartment on the south side of M
Street. Because I gotta tell you, that was damn impressive.”

He expected her to deny it had been her—or beam with pride at the
compliment—but her eyes widened in shock. For the first time that night, there
was fear on her face.

“You saw that?” She darted a nervous glance at the one-way
glass mirror to her left, the one Mick was standing behind.

He nodded. “Sure did. In fact, we have it all on video. The climb, the walk
across the cable, the jump you made to the balcony.”

On the other side of the table, her face went pale. Shit, was she starting to
hyperventilate?

“How many people have seen the video?” she demanded.

Braden frowned. Why the hell was a second-story thief worried about how many
cops had seen her display her talents? That made no sense.

“Just my partner and me,” he assured her. “But while the video is amazing, it
doesn’t explain how you were able to scale that wall. Were you using
something on your hands to get a grip? I searched your bag but didn’t find
anything.”

Dreya swallowed hard. In all of the previous occasions he’d questioned her,
she’d been confident and posed, but suddenly it was like she’d been hit
by lightning. She seemed off balance…lost.

“You can’t let anyone else see the video,” she said.

He shrugged. “That’s not really up to me.”

She stared at her cuffed wrists, her shoulders slumping in a defeat he hadn’t
seen coming. “What if I confess?”

She said it so softly he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “What?”

Dreya lifted her head to look at him, that usual glimmer missing from her eyes
now. “If I confess right now, will you destroy the video?”

Braden hoped to hell his mouth wasn’t hanging open. Being interrogated by the
cops could make people say strange stuff, but Dreya had to know that
even with the evidence they had on her, a woman with her background and
clean record could likely get a case like this whittled down from the standard
five to seven to less than two years. Why would she agree to a written
confession? What the hell was on that video she was so terrified of letting
anyone see?

He knew he needed to be careful, but right then it was hard
to think of Dreya as the hardened criminal he’d always believed. He was smart
enough to know she wasn’t a saint, but there was something going on here. She
was so terrified she was on the verge of tears.

The sudden aura of vulnerability had his heart beating hard and fast. The urge
to protect her from whatever was freaking her out was impossible to
ignore. Part of the reason he’d become a cop was to help people in
trouble, and Dreya definitely seemed to be in trouble.

**********

A
Little Known Fact from Her True Match . . .

Originally (back at the very being of the X-OPS
series), Dreya and Braden were intended to have a standalone story, completely
outside the whole Thomas Thorn arc of the series. It was just a way to slow
down and let the readers catch their breaths for a little while. But as their
book approached, the two characters simply became intertwined in the main
story. It just sort of happened that way.

**********

Paige Tyleris a New York
Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy, romantic fiction.
Paige writes books about hunky alpha males and the kick-butt heroines they fall
in love with. She lives with her very own military hero (a.k.a. her husband)
and their adorable dog on the beautiful Florida coast. Visit www.paigetylertheauthor.com.